


ready to make it

by defcontwo



Series: nothing in this world I wouldn't do [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bisexual Sam Wilson, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Multi, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-03-20 16:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18996382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: Sam is terrified, a little, of peeling back the layers to discover the magnitude of what’s been lost in the past five years but right here in this moment, he’s relieved to know that some things haven’t changed at all.His team is still his team; his family is still his family, as buck-ass crazy as they are.Or: another way that Sam ends up with the shield.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so! the second chapter is not yet written but is almost entirely plotted out in my head so uh, coming soon, etc. leila taylor is not in this chapter, she'll be in the next one. 
> 
> and if you're sitting there, asking yourself "wait, who is leila taylor," just you wait. leila taylor is from the comics & she is /awesome/.

It’s tense, standing there in front of the time travel platform, just waiting for Steve to come back. It gets even tenser when Stark joins them; his hair is greyer than it was the last time Sam saw him and he has scars winding all up his left side, now, ending with his left arm in a sling. Stark studiously avoids so much as looking in Bucky’s direction and the air feels heavy with it; they lost five years but that particular wound has gone ignored, festering in their absence. 

Just when Sam was so sure that his life couldn’t get any weirder. 

He can’t even bring himself to appreciate the absurdity of this moment -- he was way into science fiction back when he was a kid, remembers spending so many Saturday mornings sitting cross-legged on the living room carpet watching Back to the Future five million times over, and now here he is. He’s standing next to an hundred-year old super soldier wearing skinny jeans, in front of a literal time machine that doesn’t look anything like a DeLorean, and it’s not even the most surreal thing that’s happened to him in the past twenty-four hours. 

After watching his mom cry near-endless, gasping tears through FaceTime on Steve’s phone, all because him and his dad spent the past five years as so much dust in the wind, everything else feels kind of second rate. 

Sam shoves his hands in his pockets, and blows out a breath. The air feels cleaner, somehow, and he can’t decide if that’s just because he hasn’t been upstate since the Accords or if there’s something else that’s brought in this sharp, pine-scented breeze. 

Five seconds pass and still, Steve isn’t back. 

Sam glances sideways at Bucky. He’s frowning softly, the way he does when he’s worried, but he also looks entirely unsurprised, and Sam tracks back a couple of minutes, to the near-silent conversation that Sam had mistakenly assumed was a private goodbye, an exchange of I love you’s, just in case. 

There was something stubborn in the set of Steve’s shoulders and it takes a second for Sam to place it, to realize where he’s seen that exact look before: on a bridge, a whole lifetime away, right before they took down HYDRA. It was the look that meant one thing and one thing only -- that Steve Rogers wasn’t going to just give up on someone he loves, not without a fight, and suddenly, Sam knows exactly what’s going on. 

“You think he can pull it off?” Sam asks, pitching his voice low, so Bruce and Stark can’t hear him. 

Bucky doesn’t even try to feign surprise or ignorance, and Sam is thankful for that, because everything is just a little bit off-kilter, like the world is tilted off its axis, and he needs to know that he can trust his instincts, trust his team. The two of them are getting to be friends, Sam’s pretty sure, and he’s glad for it in a way that surprises him. 

“I think he’s stubborn enough that he’ll refuse to come back until he does,” Bucky says, letting out a small shrug that belies the worry lines drawn between his brows. 

“Or until he dies trying,” Sam points out because, well, that’s starting to seem like a pretty real possibility, but even as he says it, Sam doesn’t believe it. That’s the thing about Steve: when it really counts, he always comes through. 

Bucky shakes his head but doesn’t respond, like he already knows what Sam is thinking. 

“It’s been a minute,” Stark says, his voice cutting through the silence, high and accusatory, “why has it been a minute, what do you know, what did you _let him do_ \- ”

There’s a bright flash, the time machine letting out a huge crack followed by a soft whirring sound, and just as suddenly, there’s two very familiar figures standing on the platform. 

“Hey fellas,” Natasha says, tossing her red braid behind her, “what’s with all of the fancy black clothing? Is someone getting married?” 

Bruce lets loose a strangled laugh from somewhere behind them. Sam rolls his shoulders back, feels a wide smile tug at the corner of his lips, just as ten different knots of tension loosen at the sight before him: his two best friends, alive and whole and grinning stupidly, like they just got away with the best kind of prank. 

“Holy shit, Romanoff,” Stark says, gaping, a little, and clearly in shock, as he leans against a tree for support. “Holy shit, do you have nine lives or something?” 

“I’m a spider, not a cat,” Natasha quips, and Steve catches Sam’s gaze to roll his eyes at Natasha’s joke, like he’s done a thousand times before, like no time has passed at all. Sam is terrified, a little, of peeling back the layers to discover the magnitude of what’s been lost in the past five years but right here in this moment, he’s relieved to know that some things haven’t changed at all. 

His team is still his team; his family is still his family, as buck-ass crazy as they are. 

Natasha presses the button to retract her suit and jumps down the steps. “Seriously, Yasha, is this schmuck finally going to make an honest man out of you?” She jerks her head behind her, where Steve is retracting his own suit. 

Bucky says something back in Russian, voice dry and annoyed, but he hugs her anyways. Next to him, Stark lets out another small, quiet _what the fuck,_ and now, Sam has to laugh; he’s guessing Stark wasn’t exactly privy to that particular piece of knowledge. 

“Now there’s an idea,” Steve says, still with that stupid, reckless grin on his face. “What do you say, Buck?” 

“You’re a real romantic, doll,” Bucky says, still as dry as anything, but he lets Steve sling an arm over his shoulders, anyways, and now it’s Natasha’s turn to roll her eyes at Sam, just as Sam makes his standard “the old folks are being gross” gagging face right back at her. 

Natasha freezes, just for a second, and Sam can see the exact moment when the pin drops, when it dawns on her that she’s really here and so is he, and then he’s got an armful of Natasha, her slight frame bowling right into him, knocking Sam back a few steps as Natasha buries her face into his neck. 

“You’re never allowed to do that again,” Natasha murmurs. “Come on, Wilson, you’re supposed to be the responsible one.” 

Sam huffs. The only way he's the responsible one is when you compare him side by side with Steve, and even then, well. They did break a lot of international laws together. “Yeah, okay, I’ll make sure not to get snapped out of existence by a genocidal maniac next time,” he says, but then hugs her tighter, still. 

“That’s all I ask,” Natasha says, taking a small step back, but slipping one of her hands into his. She’s not even trying to hide the tears falling silently down her face and that’s another check in the column marked “things that terrify Sam about the past five years,” because the Natasha from before would never be so open, not in front of so many people. 

It’s all over, now, the stones have been returned, so Sam can take the minute to really take stock, to swing his gaze between Natasha and Steve, and wonder at what they’ve lived through. The grin has slipped off Steve’s face, replaced by a small, tentative smile, but there’s more lines in his face, these days, and shadows under his eyes that speak of grief. 

And Natasha isn’t much better. 

Both of them call to mind echoes of yesterday, of the tear-tracks running down his mother’s face. 

The battle may be done but the war…..the war still lives on, lodged deep inside of the people who lived through it. 

Well, that’s no different than usual, then. Sam can work with that. 

. 

 

He remembers Wakanda. Remembers a sudden dizziness coming over him, remembers feeling weak and light-headed.

T’Challa turned to ash before his very eyes and when Sam looked down at himself, his hand turned to ash, his arm turned to ash, and when he closed his eyes, he slipped into nothingness. 

When he opened them again, T’Challa was standing in front of him, solid but wary, and he could hear Wanda and Bucky shouting in the distance. 

Steve is gone. Natasha is gone. Okoye is gone. They’re alone, in the forest, and for the first time in a long, long time, Sam lets the panic slide beneath his skin, lets it take control over him but not for long. Not for more than a minute, and then he’s shaking himself off, bracing one hand against Bucky’s shoulder, steadying them both. 

“Sam,” Wanda says, voice shaky, and there are still tear tracks down her face from Vision, god, where did Vision’s body go, what the fuck is happening. “Sam, what do we do?” 

Sam looks to the sky, and then back down to the ground, to what’s left of his team. There’s a chill in the air and it smells different, like the seasons have changed. 

“I don’t know,” Sam says, “but we’ll figure it out.” 

. 

There’s a lot of crying, when they get back to the house. 

The Wakandan crew has the fanciest damn tent Sam’s ever seen in his life pitched in the yard in front of Stark’s house, complete with tables set up for a feast and an ample amount of booze for them to all drown their sorrows in. 

A warrior’s funeral, T’Challa had called it, and it was the least any of them could do, for Natasha, who gave her life to bring them all back. 

Well. That’s gonna be a little awkward, now. 

Okoye sees Natasha first, and pulls Natasha into a tight hug, pressing their foreheads together, whispering something gently for only the two of them to hear. Which is…..interesting and definitely merits teasing Nat about later, hopefully after they’ve broken into some Wakandan wine because man, that shit is _good_. 

But then Thor sees Natasha and promptly drops the crate of Asgardian ale he was carrying, picking her up and spinning her around, and chaos pretty much erupts from there, waves upon waves of reunions and hugs and so much goddamn joy, Sam is pretty sure his face is gonna split open from smiling too hard.

There’s tough work ahead, sure, the specter of it still lingering in the back of his mind, but this is not the moment for it. Not now, when this funeral turned party is in full swing, and no one can think of a good enough reason to spoil it.

Across the tent, Bucky appears to be attempting to teach Shuri how to lindy-hop. Sam can hear her voice cutting through the crowd, as she says, “this is a dumb colonizer dance, Sergeant,” all while Steve watches on, unmistakably fond and also, judging by the sight of the Asgardian ale next to him, maybe even a little drunk. 

So Sam grabs himself a glass of wine, fills it to the brim, and moves to join him. “Penny for your thoughts, old man,” Sam says, straddling the wooden bench. 

“Penny’s not worth much, these days,” Steve says, with a sly half-grin. “I’ll need at least a Hamilton for that.” 

Sam smacks him in the arm. “I don’t know what lies Barnes is telling you, man, because you are not as funny as you think you are.” 

Steve looks down at his glass, twirling the liquid around in it, and smiles, softly. “You know, I still can’t quite believe that this is real. That it worked.” 

Sam hums. “Gotta say, this is the most fun funeral that I’ve ever been to.” 

“Yeah, it’s a little different when the deceased comes back to life and gets to show up to her own party, huh?” Steve’s gaze locks onto where Natasha is holding court in the center of the tent, deep in conversation with Barton and his family. “I didn’t know I could feel anymore hopeless than I already did, until we lost her.” 

Sam thinks back to that moment at the VA, in another lifetime, when he asked Steve what made him happy, and Steve’s response, the hunched shoulders, the “I don’t know,” had to be just about one of the saddest fucking things that Sam had ever seen. 

He doesn’t want to picture this more recent Steve, a Steve who lost him and Bucky and Wanda and then, after all of it, Natasha. Sam tries to put himself in Steve’s shoes but he can’t, his mind stalls at the thought of it. His parents, his team. God, losing Riley was hard enough. 

Sam shakes himself. There’s nothing any of them can do about the past, now. It’s all about going forward. “You think you and Barnes are gonna head back to Wakanda?” 

Steve’s eyes are drawn back to the makeshift dance floor, where Natasha has now joined Shuri and Bucky, as Natasha gamely tries and fails to get them both to do pirouettes. Man, Sam has got to ask T’Challa what is in that wine.

“I think so,” Steve says, slowly, like he’s still mulling it over, a little. “Not forever, but just….just a little while, I think. I haven’t been very good at uh, taking care of myself lately. Going off the grid to Bucky’s farm to just, I don’t know, figure out what I wanna do next. It’s a good idea.” 

“What, you didn’t take any of your own advice in those therapy sessions of yours?” Sam says, and that was a surprise, both that Steve led those groups in the first place, and that Sam had to find out about it from his mom, instead of Steve. 

Steve ducks his head, the tips of his ears turning red. “Not at all. I guess I just, tried to guess at what you would do and lied through my teeth.” 

“Rogers,” Sam starts, as he goes to level Steve with a disappointed dad glare that he’s absolutely copying from a pastor that he knew growing up. It mostly works; it would, what with all of Steve’s Irish Catholic guilt. “I’ve known a lot of dumb white boys in my day but I have to say, you just might be the dumbest.” 

Steve smothers a laugh, and then nods towards Bucky, who has abandoned the dance floor to stand off to the side, exchanging quiet words with Wanda. “Dumber than him?”

“Yep,” Sam says, “but don’t tell him I said that, he can’t know that I like him, it ruins all of the fun.” 

Steve crosses his fingers over his heart but grins like he’s gonna squeal on Sam the first chance he gets which probably, he will. “You’re gonna go home, right?” 

“Yeah,” Sam says, “god, I can’t wait. I didn’t mean to stay away for so long.”

He was already missing home, missing Harlem and his mom’s perfume and their little walk-up on West 145th and Broadway, long before Thanos showed up on the scene. Now, armed with the knowledge that it’s been six whole years since he last saw his parents’ faces, it’s no kind of a decision at all: he has to be there, has to see them, has to be what they need. 

The corner of Steve’s lips quirk upwards in a small, even smile and he nods, like he understands, like he knows exactly what was just going through Sam’s mind. Well, if anyone would. 

“You know, I can’t believe you were living in my childhood bedroom, Cap,” Sam says, already warming to the teasing jokes he’s about to make, trying to guess at how hard Steve is gonna blush and run away. “I lost my virginity in that bedroom.” 

Steve blanches, predictably. “I’m sure it was a different bed.” 

Sam cups his chin in one hand, and stares off into the distance. “Me and Toro Raymond, getting all hot and heavy after band practice, my god.” 

Steve balls up a napkin and throws it in Sam’s direction, but Sam ducks away from it easily. 

“You know, I think he’s a firefighter now,” Sam muses. “Maybe I should look him up.” 

“You do that,” Steve says, letting out a put-upon sigh, but he’s grinning, a little, as he gets up from the table. “Me? I’m gonna get myself another drink, Falcon.” 

Sam chuckles to himself; that went exactly the way he expected it to. 

He sits back, and takes the whole place in. It’s getting into the early hours of the morning but the party shows no sign of stopping, not anytime soon. The lights are bright, the food has pretty much been demolished, and the wine is still flowing. 

Not everyone underneath this broad, fancy tent gets along, all the way, but after the battle, after everything, no one’s making a fuss about it. 

This is a good night. Sam knows he’s gonna need it, need the strength that it’s shoring up inside of him, for whatever comes next. 

. 

 

Stark lends him a car and Sam throws whatever little belongings he has left in the trunk. It’ll take him about two hours, give or take, and his phone still works, somehow, so he has a playlist all ready to go. 

He remembers going home after his first tour, worn out from so much adrenaline and lost sleep, and overwhelmed by everything he saw, not sure yet if he belonged back in the real world. 

He remembers going home after his second tour, his body and soul aching in equal measure, grieving Riley, grieving for himself, and for the life they were supposed to have together. 

He went home different, both times, but home, home was always the same. 

Sam starts up the car and turns off the dirt road, heading towards the city.

This time, he’s not so sure what he’s gonna find.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey all it’s the one and only Falcon, back from the dust, and home in NY - got any word on local relief efforts to join?” 
> 
> Sam comes home, takes to Twitter, joins in on some community organizing, meets up with an old friend, and in the process, figures out what he's going to do next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i went back & forth a lot on whether this would be two chapters or three but in the end, the second chapter took on a whole life of its own, haha. so! here's the second chapter, with the third (and final!) to hopefully be up soonish.
> 
> also, here's my all time favorite leila taylor panel from back when steve was, for some reason, a cop as his day-job: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Leila_Taylor_(Earth-616)?file=Leila_Taylor_calls_Cap_whitey.png

The beautiful, well-tended countryside homes slowly give way to cracked pavement and the further Sam goes, the more he starts to see what he was afraid of. 

Abandoned cars, pushed off to the side of the road. Stragglers walking down the asphalt because they blinked back into existence right where they were left off and now, five years later, their cars are dead, their necessities gone, and they have nothing but the clothes on their back. 

Between Chappaqua and Yonkers, Sam picks up as many people as he can carry in Stark’s SUV. There’s a lanky black teenager named Eli who was snapped out of existence in the middle of a camping trip with his uncle, who insisted that he’d be okay, that he’d make it home just fine, but out here, in the middle of nowhere, Sam wasn’t gonna take that chance. 

There’s a young woman who needs to make it back to her mother’s apartment in Flatbush and Sam knows just enough Spanish to understand that she has a daughter who’s just turned five. He doesn’t have the heart or the words to tell her that her daughter is probably ten, by now, that she’s missed five whole years of her child’s life. 

He already knows that there’s gonna be a lot of that going around, has seen the ghosts of those long five years set into the lines of Steve’s face, the brightness in Natasha’s eyes; he’s heard them through the trembling of his mom’s voice through the phone. 

Somewhere around Riverdale, Sam comes across almost an entire fucking family from Missouri: two moms and one four-year old son standing next to a collapsed tree and a Subaru with a dead battery. They were driving up and down the East Coast to tour colleges for their seventeen year-old daughter, Alexis, who they were so, so proud of. Alexis is nowhere to be found and Sam just hopes that wherever she is, she made it somewhere safe too. 

Hell, he’s an optimist. Maybe she even managed to start college. 

Sam crosses his fingers and keeps on driving; he didn’t have any plans to stop until he got to Penn Station, but that lasted right up until Eli swore quietly to himself and then immediately tugged on Sam’s shirtsleeves, saying, “uh, excuse me, Sam, are you seeing that?” 

There’s just enough panic in Eli’s voice to make Sam slow the car to a rolling stop, cut the engine, and turn to where Eli is pointing, in the direction of the Hudson. In the back seat, the ten year old boy presses his hands and his face up against the windows, and asks, “is that a dinosaur?”

“What the fuck?” Sam says, before he can stop himself, because that is most definitely _not _a dinosaur that he’s seeing. Although, evolutionarily speaking, the kid does kind of have a point.__

__“No, that’s a humpback whale,” Eli says, opening the door to the passenger side to step out. “That’s…..several humpback whales.”_ _

__Sam hops out too, and then pretty soon, the rest of them are all following to gather on the side of the road and stare. This is a little like Jurassic Park, Sam thinks, with only a little bit of hysteria; the way they’re all standing in complete stillness, overwhelmed with awe and maybe a little bit of terror, does feel a whole hell of a lot like that one scene in the movie where they all stop and stare at the Brachiosaurus like a bunch of dumbasses._ _

__Only now, he’s the dumbass. Sam shakes out a laugh, stuffing both hands in his pockets. “A whole pod of whales in the Hudson. Well, I’ll be damned.”_ _

__Eli knocks his shoulders into Sam’s. “Dude, if we run into a wooly mammoth in the Bronx, I’m absolutely sticking with you.”_ _

__Sam watches the humpback whales glide in and out of the water, like his life is suddenly an issue of National Geographic come to life, of all things, and boggles, a little. “Sure thing, kid. It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing that I’ve ever fought.”_ _

__A beat later, he hears the little boy whisper to one of his moms “are you sure it’s not a dinosaur,” right as Sam takes out his phone and finds that it has just enough power left to snap a quick photo._ _

__“May you live in interesting times,” Eli cracks, and Sam kind of wants to toss him into the river with the whales, just to see what happens. Teenagers, honestly._ _

__Instead, he claps Eli on the shoulder and turns to face the others, because they’re all hungry and tired and some of them have a hell of a lot longer to go, still. “Come on, everyone. Let’s get going.”_ _

__._ _

__Sam drops the whole crew off at Penn Station and then loops back around, heading for home._ _

__The city is a wreck, as far as he can tell. There are haphazard tents piled onto the sidewalks, spilling out into the streets, and all of them are filled with tired, hungry-looking people that he can only assume snapped back into existence only to find that their lives had been taken over, their homes lost, and now there’s no one around to tell them what comes next._ _

__Sam is starting to understand a little better why his mom asked Steve to stick around in their old apartment when she went to stay with her sister in Pittsburgh._ _

__Sam pulls up to the curb of outside his parents’ apartment and is hit, suddenly, with the grotesque mental image of New Yorkers blinking back into life, only to find themselves trapped in a long-forgotten subway car._ _

__God, it’s been almost four days since Bruce snapped his fingers and brought everyone back. Were there rescue efforts? There must’ve been. There had to be._ _

__If there’s one thing that Sam knows for certain, it’s that there’s always people who are willing to lend a hand, no matter how bad it gets. He learned that lesson from Mrs. Chiu across the street, who fed him every day for six months straight back in the fifth grade, while his dad was at work and his mom was still recovering from chemo. He learned it from the stubborn set in Leila’s jaw back when everyone tried to tell her that training to be a clinic escort was a stupid fucking thing to do when she was five foot nothing and barely out of high school._ _

__And well, he learned it from himself, in DC, because Sam’s honest with himself enough to know that he was always going to jump back into the fight, it just had to be the right time, the right fight._ _

__Still, it doesn’t matter how many people are out there, trying to lend a hand. It’s still a mess, an absolute giant fucking FUBAR and Sam, Sam already knows that he’ll be wading knee-deep into it as soon as he can._ _

__Because this mess, it’s happening all over, it has to be, it’s just that it’s a little worse here with so many fucking people underfoot._ _

__He was warned going in that it could be like this. Rhodey told him all about how lots of folks flocked to the cities after a while because staying alone in half-empty towns started to drive them a little crazy, started to make the overwhelming emptiness of their world just a little too lonely to bear._ _

__Now, everyone’s back and there’s too many people in a city that wasn’t exactly wanting for population in the first place._ _

__“Great,” Sam mutters, as he locks up the car, and bounds up the concrete steps to the building that he grew up in. “Just what I always wanted, to be a character in some twisted, reverse Cormac McCarthy novel.”_ _

__He takes a deep breath and leans on the buzzer, waiting for the tell-tale click that means his parents are expecting him, that means they’re just a flight of stairs and an open doorway away, and then he’ll finally, finally be home._ _

__._ _

__It’s a warm, unbearably humid day in Atlanta the day of Riley’s funeral and Sam’s dress blues stick to his skin, the heavy fabric soaked through with sweat._ _

__Sam almost takes a seat in the back, where no one else can see him, but he won’t do that to Riley, he knows what Riley would’ve wanted him to do. So, Sam sinks himself down into one of the solid pine pews next to Riley’s sister, right in the front row, and stares straight ahead. Folds his hands in his lap and straightens his spine, and tries to look like he’s not falling apart at the seams._ _

__It’s not that he’s not welcome because he is, he knows he is -- every single damn member of Riley’s family called to make sure that he was coming and he appreciates it, he does, but it’s a little smothering all the same._ _

__It’s just that they were all barely starting to get used to this: to Sam and Riley and what they meant to each other. It’s the middle of the summer but Sam still has a standing invite to Christmas that he already knows he’ll have to turn down._ _

__Before, there was a whole book with mostly blank pages just waiting to get filled up with what they could be, but now, the book stops short, and the rest of the pages will always be left empty._ _

__Now, there’s a funeral and a grave to be filled and an empty space at Sam’s side. A chapel flooded with sunlight, Riley’s five-year old cousins squirming in their stiff suits, and an ache in Sam’s chest that’s weighted down with grief and guilt and a raw, simmering resentment._ _

__Today will end and tomorrow, he will go home and for the world outside, time will tick steadily on -- there will still be soldiers, in Afghanistan, in whatever country their damn fool government decides to invade next, and it will be like none of this ever happened at all._ _

__But it did happen. Riley loved Sam, loved him with every early morning kiss and every middle-of-the-air bad joke, and by God, did Sam love him back. It was real and Sam will sit here in testament, all the way through the service, until it’s time to go, time to hop on a plane from Atlanta to JFK, time to fall into his mother’s arms, and weep and weep and weep._ _

__._ _

__The front door flies open and Sam’s mom bowls right into him, just like Natasha did the day before, and wraps her arms around his middle._ _

__Sam’s dad comes to stand in the doorway, leaning against the door jamb, and meets Sam’s gaze over the top of his mom’s head. Her perfume is exactly the same as it always was, jasmine and lemon and something else that’s he’s never been able to name, and his dad is wearing the same 1996 World Series Yankees shirt that he’s had since 1996. It’s wearing thin around the shoulders, the cotton soft and the navy blue faded._ _

__Sam trembles a little, as he wraps both arms around his mother’s shoulders and buries his face in her hair._ _

__“Hey Ma,” Sam murmurs, “long time, no see.”_ _

__He expects the smack in the arm, the “damnit, Samuel,” that immediately follows it, but somehow, he doesn’t expect the changes in his mother’s face when she steps back. The new wrinkles, the deep lines underneath her eyes, and the way her tight curls are now shot through with more grey than black. There’s a tremor in her right hand as she reaches out to smooth down the collar of his shirt and he’s pretty sure it’s not just nerves._ _

__He understood, intellectually, that there’s a difference between sixty-five and seventy. It was hard to tell through the camera in Steve’s phone but he knew, of course, that she’d be much older than he expected._ _

__But the knowledge of it, staring right up at him, still drives a sharp blade in between his ribs and twists. He lost five years with his mom and he didn’t mean to, but he lost them all the same, and now all he can see is every other year he spent away from home._ _

__The Air Force. Two years of Pararescue training and another six months on top of that to earn his wings. Two tours in Afghanistan. The aftermath of the Accords. It’s a lot of years. A lot of lost time._ _

__It’s not wasted time because he wouldn’t do a damn thing differently, but in the here and now, Sam’s gonna make a couple different choices._ _

__His dad clears his throat. “Are we gonna stand out here in the hallway all night?”_ _

__“Of course we are,” Sam’s mom says, and Sam can almost see the moment when she stands up a little taller, takes some of the grief that she’s been carrying around with her and rolls it up, and puts it away. “We’ll bring out all of the blankets and make it a picnic. Come on, honey, you know nothing says heartwarming family reunion like dinner on a cold, dirty New York hallway floor.”_ _

__Sam barks out a laugh, and it echoes in the hallway. “You kinda asked for that one, Dad.”_ _

__“Yeah, yeah, your tongue is as sharp as always, my darling Rose,” Dad says, shaking his head as makes his way back into the apartment._ _

__Sam picks up his duffle from the ground, slinging it around to his back, and at the same time, reaches out and grabs hold of his mom’s hand, just because he’s here and he can. “Lead the way, Ma.”_ _

__._ _

__The thing about joining the Air Force was, Sam didn’t exactly have any illusions going in._ _

__Leila argued with him every damn day right up until he enlisted, about the military industrial complex, about the fucked up shit happening overseas, about how the American military was no place for a queer black boy from Harlem, and the thing is, Sam _knew, he knew all that already.__ _

___But he wanted to make something of himself and he didn’t want to hold out hope for a scholarship, didn’t want to leave his future up to chance, didn’t want the entire path of his life in someone else’s hands._ _ _

___“How is joining the fucking Air Force any different,” is probably what Leila would’ve said if he’d told her that, but to him, at eighteen, it was different. It was his choice and he walked right into it with his eyes wide open._ _ _

___With his SAT scores, with all the work that he did for his high school robotics club, Sam could’ve gone to MIT. He was smart enough for it and he knew it, and all his teachers knew it, but MIT is expensive, and his parents never could have afforded it without loans upon loans. That price tag doesn’t come easy for a high school physics teacher still recovering from steep chemo bills and it definitely doesn’t come easy for her husband, the career social worker._ _ _

___And, well. Sam’s Uncle Jason was a Pararescue and they’d lost him much, much too early in a dumb fucking car accident, of all things._ _ _

___So, it felt right. Felt like maybe Sam was honoring a memory and forging his own way at the same time._ _ _

___He doesn’t regret it. Not for a single fucking second. He learned so much about himself and about the world, got to see places that he never would’ve seen otherwise. Sam learned Arabic and Turkish and some pretty passable German, and he fell in love with Riley, and he saved so, so many lives._ _ _

___But it carved a lot out of him, too. Over the years, he learned how to stop the bleeding, how to put on the right bandages and let the scar tissue heal over, but at the end of the day, the damage is still there. That scar tissue is apart of him and he’s learned to be okay with it._ _ _

___Now, Sam is sick to death of finding the people he loves and the places he cares about fractured in so many pieces, unable to stop the hemorrhaging._ _ _

___He wants to help but he’s not so sure the best way to go about doing that, these days._ _ _

___._ _ _

___ _

___Sam gives it about a day while he loafs around the apartment, helping out with the cooking and sitting on the couch with his parents, watching syndicated reruns of the Golden Girls. The power keeps going in and out at odd times, and he’s real glad that it’s summertime, because he doesn’t want to imagine what this could be like in the dead of winter._ _ _

___Every time the power goes and dies on them, Sam finds himself picking up odd tasks around the house. He hangs a couple of shelves and tosses a bunch of his old clothes into a to-be-donated bag. He rifles through a box of his old comic books and then packs up the pathetically few personal belongings that Steve left behind so they don’t get lost in the shuffle. Sam has no idea how to mail a package to “that farm in Wakanda where Bucky keeps his goats,” so he figures he’ll just hold onto this stuff until the two of them make their way back to New York._ _ _

___But he can’t ignore the news that filters through sporadically in between Estelle Getty’s finely coiffed grey hair and dry jokes, and anyways, Sam’s never been any good at keeping still._ _ _

___So, in the middle of soaking some beans for tonight’s dinner, Sam pulls up Twitter on his phone and tries to figure out what people are up to, out in the world._ _ _

___It’s pretty much about what he expected: everyone is fucked but the places that had better infrastructure to begin with, well, they’re a hell of a lot less fucked than everyone else. Germany, Norway, Denmark, and Japan are figuring out how to get back on their feet. International leadership is…..confused, Sam surmises, but he’s gonna need to know what went into the past five years to really get what’s happening._ _ _

___Sam frowns at his phone. The world is way, way too big a problem to solve right this second. He has to start smaller but he hasn’t lived in New York in over a decade; he has no idea where to start._ _ _

___For lack of a better option, Sam opens up his Twitter app and sends out a message, in the hopes that someone, somewhere, will have a good enough answer: “hey all it’s the one and only Falcon, back from the dust, and home in NY - got any word on local relief efforts to join?”_ _ _

___For the first ten minutes, he mostly gets nonsense in return, unintelligible responses coupled with random people saying how glad they are that he’s alive, right alongside tweets from users who want him to know that they wish he had stayed dusted. Sam rolls his eyes and keeps scrolling._ _ _

___And then he gets a message from a **l.taylor** that reads, “hey dumbass come to pp in lic we’re gettin’ shit done.” _ _ _

___L. Taylor. Leila Taylor._ _ _

___Sam’s face splits into a grin and he runs to dig through the pockets of an old coat hanging by the kitchen counter, searching for a metrocard. “Hey Ma, is the subway running? I have to get to Queens.”_ _ _

___._ _ _

___ _

___The subway isn’t running. It hasn’t run in over three and a half years, according to the guy who owns the bodega down the end of the block, although several of the lines crapped out even earlier than that. Because that’s what happens when a shitty, ageing system is suddenly met with a severely depleted workforce that’s unable to perform adequate repairs. The city has pretty much been running off the bus system ever since, which….seems to be working better than he would’ve guessed, actually._ _ _

___Sam thanks Asad for the info and buys a bag of chips for his trouble, and then he hops into Stark’s SUV and heads out onto the road. There aren’t many people on the streets, still, and the ride to the Planned Parenthood clinic in Long Island City doesn’t take long at all._ _ _

___He should’ve known that Leila would’ve been knee-deep in all of this; she’s been organizing pretty much since they were fifteen. Still, they’d lost touch over the years, along with the rest of their high school friend group. Sam didn’t mean for it to happen, but the rapid fire schedule of studying, robotics club, SATs, and track practice was nothing compared to Pararescue training, and everything else just sort of...slipped through Sam’s fingers. He kept up with Toro through FaceBook but Leila didn’t have a Facebook, and then her phone number changed, and well. Toro was his best friend, way back when, and Leila — Leila was the girl who gave him shit in English class when he said something she didn’t agree with. Of course, he always gave her shit right back. That was just what they did._ _ _

___They were first and second in their graduating class, and they got along about as much as they didn’t. He had a crush on her but that penny didn’t drop until years and years later. He didn’t really get it, back then, that falling for a girl didn’t mean that he was lying to himself. It just meant that there were lots of good people out there that he could fall for. That things didn’t have to be so cut and dry._ _ _

___Not that any of that matters right this second. That was all a long, long time ago and Sam, Sam is just struck by the utter mundanity of coming home to the place you grew up in and not knowing if it’s still a place where you’re meant to fit._ _ _

___It’s just Sam’s luck that he’s doing it in the middle of a global catastrophe. Figures._ _ _

___Sam makes his way through from the security check to the reception area, where he approaches the girl at the front desk, a young girl of about twenty, wearing a bright red hijab and a name tag that reads “Kamala, she/hers.”_ _ _

___“Sam Wilson,” Kamala says, before Sam can even open his mouth. “Leila told me she knew an Avenger but I totally didn’t believe her.”_ _ _

___Sam leans against the reception desk, easing into a wide, gap-toothed grin. Oh, this is just too good. “Oh yeah? Leila Taylor bragged about knowing little ole me?”_ _ _

___“More like, complained about what a stupid, reckless idiot you are.” Leila’s voice rings out from the door behind the reception desk, and then she’s walking through it, all five feet of fight and smarts that she is._ _ _

___Sam feels her presence like a gutpunch. She looks exactly the same, almost. Her hair is styled into goddess locs instead of the short, cropped hair that she was into back in high school and there’s a quiet steadiness in the set of her shoulders that didn’t used to be there, that must’ve come with age. Outside of all that, though, there’s that same Leila steel in her brown eyes that Sam used to know so well._ _ _

___“You really know how to flatter a guy, Taylor,” Sam says. “It’s good to see you, Leila.”_ _ _

___Leila leans over the reception desk, folding her hands in front of her, letting her weight fall forward as she peers up at him in much the same way that she used to take apart a project back in school. “What the fuck, Sam. Did you get taller?”_ _ _

___Sam rears his head back, letting loose an echoing, full-body laugh. Christ. He really does have a type._ _ _

___Sam taps his index finger on the desk once, twice, his right hand skating dangerously close to where hers are resting, clasped, so they’re almost but not quite touching. He wants to lean over the desk and hug her but doesn’t know how she’d react, doesn’t know if she’d want that, so for now, this’ll have to do. “I don’t know, you think maybe you’ve gotten shorter?”_ _ _

___Leila rolls her eyes, but then she reaches over, placing one hand over his, her skin a steady weight against his. “Hey, Sam. I’m glad you’re not dead.”_ _ _

___Warmth blooms in his chest, unexpectedly. “Yeah, me too.”_ _ _

___To the left of him, a throat clears itself, loudly. “Hey, uh. Kamala, here. I am still standing here, you know?”_ _ _

___Sam startles, slightly, and is slightly gratified to see Leila’s eyes widen, just slightly, like maybe she’s about as sideswiped as he is. “Sorry, Kamala. So. How can I help?”_ _ _

___Kamala pulls out a thick, plastic binder from beneath the desk and plops it down with a thud. Sheafs of paper are falling out of it and there’s a small white label with the words ‘NYC EMERGENCY PRIORITIES’ written out in small, neat font. “Dude, I thought you’d never ask.”_ _ _

___._ _ _

___Somewhere in between Minsk and Kyiv, him and Steve pull off the road into a small copse of trees, and make camp for the night. They could’ve found a motel but Sam is pretty fucking done with dodging the probing, often hostile gazes of locals who clearly have never seen a black man before and Steve, Steve is just tired._ _ _

___So, they pull out sleeping bags, make a small fire, and settle in._ _ _

___Steve’s been pretty bad company the past few days and part of Sam, the part of him that’s also pretty fucking done with canned vegetables and Eastern Europe, wants to say something, wants to shake him until a happier Steve falls out._ _ _

___The only thing that stops him, really, is the memory of his mom, and how she let him be rotten fucking company back in those ugly couple of months that he spent at home right after Riley died. “Only up until a point, Samuel,” she would say, “and then you have to get your shit together.”_ _ _

___Steve hasn’t exactly reached that point yet. Still, Sam doesn’t expect them to do much talking, not while Steve is this deep in brooding mode, but Steve surprises him, as always, by breaking the silence. “Why Pararescue?”_ _ _

___Sam rolls over, in Steve’s direction, and grunts. “Dude, what?”_ _ _

___Steve waves a hand in the air, cutting it through the stillness. “What made you become a Pararescue instead of, I don’t know….a fighter pilot or a sailor, whatever.”_ _ _

___Sam scratches lightly at the beard that’s growing in at the edges of his jawline and frowns. Part of it was about his Uncle Jason, sure, but something tells him that that’s not exactly what Steve is getting at. “I don’t know, I guess...out of all the options laid out before me, it was the one that most felt like….god, this is gonna sound fucking stupid….it was the one that most felt like me, you know?”_ _ _

___Steve is silent, for a beat, and then he lets out a long, slow sigh, the sound of it hissing between his teeth. “S’not stupid, Sam. Or...at least, not to me.”_ _ _

___“Yeah, but you jump out of airplanes without a parachute,” Sam mutters, with only a little animosity._ _ _

___“Technically,” Steve says, slowly, the curl of a grin coming through his low rumble, and it’s typical that this is the first sign of genuine life that Steve’s shown in days. “You do the same damn thing.”_ _ _

___Sam empties his water bottle over Steve’s head and doesn’t regret it even a little._ _ _

___._ _ _

___ _

___There’s a map on every surface of the second floor conference room, with little pins stuck in all over the five boroughs and organized by color to show which problems are the highest priority, and which ones can wait a bit. Leila has a whole network of organizers, spread out across the city, making battery and dried food runs, and a whole other network for things like, what happens when your house is taken over by squatters and now you’re living in a park, in a shitty tent, wondering if anyone’s gonna help you._ _ _

___Sam takes it all in, sifts through the stacks of papers, and runs his palms across the maps. His hands are already itching for a pencil to draw notes, to come up with a focused strategy. This, he can do._ _ _

___Oh yeah. There’s a lot he can do with this._ _ _

___Sam squares his shoulders. “What’s priority number one?”_ _ _

___Leila comes to stand beside him, as she reaches out and points to a solid red pin in Brownsville, in Brooklyn. “There’s about ten people that came back from the Decimation in the middle of a collapsed subway tunnel. Fire Department’s lines are so jammed that we can’t get through and there’s only a hole big enough for a few people to get in and out, if you can make it up and down the twenty feet to the tunnel.”_ _ _

___Sam traces his finger across the red of the 3 train line. “Anyone else out there doing search and rescue?”_ _ _

___Leila snorts. “You’ll be happy to know that the Police Commissioner saved the life of some white lady’s tabby cat in Chelsea.”_ _ _

___“Of course he did,” Sam sighs._ _ _

___“You’ve got your wings, I’m guessing,” Leila asks, hip-checking him lightly._ _ _

___“Always do,” Sam says. He takes a step back, and nods. “Alright. Let’s get started.”_ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes okay there is approximately zero evidence in the comics that leila is short but iiiiii just liked the idea of her mcu counterpart being a tiny force of nature sooo here we are.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam takes hold of the shield by the edges as Steve passes it over; it’s lighter than the original and that’s the hallmark of Shuri’s handiwork, but it’ll be no less tough in the field. Sam flips it so the straps are facing him and hooks his right arm through the soft leather. 
> 
> “How’s it feel?” The look on Steve’s face is inscrutable, which is so entirely unlike him that Sam’s not sure how to respond. 
> 
> Sam huffs. “Like it belongs to someone else.”

Sam saves everyone that got trapped in the collapsed subway station in Brownsville and then he turns right back around and heads for the Bronx, to Tremont Avenue, and does the same damn thing all over again. He curses idiot New York politicians and they’re inability to do anything about this ancient, ramshackle system all the way straight through his first 48 hours, jumping from station to station, pulling people out of crumbling subway tunnels.

And he sits at that conference table in Long Island City with Kamala for hours and hours on end, until the sun starts to come up and it’s time for her to duck out of the room to pray. They dig through piles of emergency contacts and cross-reference them with their latest priority list to figure out what Sam needs to do himself versus what they can pass on to the volunteer firefighter groups, given the right supplies.

He drinks more cups of Dunkin coffee than he’s had in years and subsists off congealed cold pizza and he pumps his fist in the air in victory when Leila finally gets the Fire Commissioner on the phone, so no one tries to call the cops when they start seeing random ex-fugitive Avengers running around.

The immediate priorities run the gamut of just about every type of crazy he could imagine and a few that he never could’ve dreamed up: poorly maintained train stations and collapsed bridges and people who had the misfortune to get snapped back into partially demolished buildings. A lot can happen in five years; probably, someone should’ve thought of that when they were putting together their damned time heist.

Sam tries to save more than he loses, but he’s been doing this long enough to know that he doesn’t get a choice, always, that sometimes that shit’s beyond his control.

But his damn fool self does it anyways, over and over again, finds himself staring death down, blood running thick and hot over his fingers as he tries to fix a ten year old kid up as best he can with a field kit before the ambulance arrives.

And later, when the ER doctor comes out and gives him the good news, tells him the kid is gonna be fine, Sam takes a bus all the way home, still covered in blood, and hugs his parents because he can, because they’re there, whole and unharmed, and that’s more than most can say these days.

About a week in, he gets a call from Scott Lang about San Francisco, about how fucked up it is over there and there’s about five minutes of rambling to get to the point, of course, but at the end of it, Sam gets the gist: Scott wants to help but he doesn’t have a whole lot of resources, not as an ex-con and not as someone who spent the past five years in the Quantum Realm. There’s a food shortage in the East Bay and Scott’s got about a hundred trays of his friend’s abuelita’s enchiladas ready to go but no real plan on where to take them.

As it turns out, Sam is friends with the king of an African nation with a very fancy, very well-put together outreach center in Oakland, so that’s no problem at all. Between Scott and the Wakandans, Sam figures that that’s the entirety of Northern California sorted.

The next time his phone rings, it’s Natasha in Chicago, trying to get a handle on how under-supplied the hospitals are, but funnily enough, Leila’s college roommate is a surgeon who lives there, so Sam’s apparently got an answer for that one too.

It takes about two weeks to put out all of the immediate fires.

It takes another month and a half to really take stock of how fucked the infrastructure is.

Sam doesn’t really stop and think about any of it -- he can’t, because there’s no time to and because he’s trained for this in a way that most aren’t, so he sleeps less and works more and reaches out to his VA network, and gets together a volunteer group of retired pararescuers to help out. Together with Leila’s organizing connections, they’ve managed to knit an entire informal network across vast swaths of the country that were left in the lurch.

Sam could use some more sleep, sure, and his Ma keeps at him about it, but the way he sees it, he’s been out of commission for five years while a lot of other people had to keep everything together through the haze of their own grief. He can take on the load, for a while.

It’s work that needs doing; that’s all there is to it.

.

 

The first time it happens, he’s in Kabul, and he’s got a sunburn in weird, thin lines where his goggles aren’t, his feet ache and he’s so goddamn sick of jalapeno and cheese MREs that he’s definitely gonna barf at the next sight of one. He’s got dust and sand in places that he’s pretty sure human beings aren’t ever supposed to get dust and sand, and the Master Sergeant is so far up their collective asses this week that Sam hasn’t had more than a minute alone with Riley in days.

To put it plainly: Sam’s pissed.

But Sam’s in charge of his team, unofficially, in that he’s the only one of them who manages not to lose his shit when they’re all bored and impatient like this, waiting for their next mission to come. If he loses his shit, then the whole team will lose their shit along with him.

So, Sam squats down on an upturned bucket, leans back against their HUM-V and grins, wide and bright, like he’s having a nice afternoon in Central Park and not like he’s got sand in his briefs. “Beautiful day we’re having, huh?”

Julio sends a sullen look in Sam’s direction but Riley just huffs, turning those deep green eyes of his towards Sam, the corner of Riley’s lip quirking upwards, sending a curl of warmth through Sam’s chest.

“You don’t _always_ have to do that, you know,” Riley says. “What are you, Captain fucking America?”

“Bet you’d like to see him in those tights,” Julio cracks, prompting Riley to send a crinkled-up MRE wrapper in his direction, but the sly, lopsided look that Riley tosses Sam right after tells him that Julio is absolutely not wrong.

“Gentlemen,” Sam says, with a put-upon air of authority, drawing his spine up straight against the HUM-V, “Captain America, I am not, but damn, my ass would look _bangin’_ in those tights.”

.

 

Sam wakes up to buzzing near his ear, his face smushed into a pillow, and the rest of him all tangled up in soft, cotton pink sheets that smell faintly of coconut oil and something else, something clean that must be from those fancy dryer sheets Leila always splurges on. Rain patters sideways into the window in Leila’s bedroom, lulling Sam further and further away from consciousness. He swats at his phone lightly but in his sleep-soft state, he accidentally winds up knocking it off the bed, where it falls to the hardwood floor with a clatter.

“Fuck,” Sam says, his mouth full of pillow, as he tries to snake his arm down around the bed towards the floor without having to actually move, hands scrabbling for his phone. His fingers catch onto the corner of his phone and he lets out a low muffled _a-ha_ as he brings it up close to his face, squinting at the bright light of the screen in the darkened room.

 

> **5 notifications from Steve Rogers**

“This better not be about those fucking goats,” Sam says, not realizing that he’d dipped into a regular speaking volume until Leila’s hand thwaps into his side.

“Too early for talking, Wilson. Don’t make me come over there.” When Sam glances over, though, Leila’s eyes are still closed, like she’s sleeping, but she’s rolled over to face him, and the act of it brings them even closer in this already cramped queen-sized bed, so much so that she’s starting to edge onto the corner of his pillow.

Sam’s sure the look on his face right now is a little dopey, so it’s a good thing that she’s got her eyes screwed firmly shut and that there’s no one else around to see it. Because this…this is impossibly new, for all that it’s settled into his bones like it was meant to be there all along. He and Steve, they spent a lot of time talking about love and fate when they were hauling ass all across Europe, looking for Bucky. And Steve...Steve is a dramatic romantic, he sees things in big pictures and sweeping lines, he hears the rise of the music at the end of a first kiss.

Sam’s never really bought into all of that; it’s one of the many reasons he’s glad that they never tried to take their friendship any further, never tried to test the waters of the simple attraction that lay between them that first day on the National Mall. Sam’s pretty sure that Steve would’ve driven him a little nuts after a while, if they had.

Because the way Sam figures, there’s no one right person — it’s just timing, is all, and at the end of it, it all adds up to something bigger than whatever can be contained within his tall frame. Every time he falls for someone new, Sam cracks himself open in some new, indiscernible way and learns a little better what makes himself tick on the inside.

Sam lost five years of his life and Leila, well, she lived all the way through them, and kept on fighting and fighting, and now she’s still here, doing the same thing as she’s always done. And it’s been twenty years to the month, give or take, since they first met, and five weeks to the day since they kissed for the first time, and whatever’s unfurling between them now, in the spaces between all of the hard work and the late nights, it’s surprisingly, refreshingly easy. Timing: you can’t knock it and you sure as hell can’t predict it.

And this, this is what he’s always liked best about falling in love: the little moments, the in-betweens, when you’re just two people hanging out, letting yourselves drool into the sheets, and lacking any self consciousness over the way the pillows crease lines into your face.

“Staring at me counts as talking,” Leila breaks into his thoughts but when Sam glances over, her eyes are still closed.

“Excuse you,” Sam says, shimmying a little in place so his legs knock lightly into hers. “I’m reading my very important messages over here.”

Leila reaches out and pokes him in the gut. “Liar. I can see with my eyes closed.”

“Uhuh. Sure.” Sam huffs. “That a magical power? You joining the Avengers too?”

Leila opens both eyes to feign a glare in his direction, scrunching her face together the way she’s always done when she wants to laugh but isn’t sure if you’ve earned the right just yet. It’s as adorable now as it was when they were kids. “Yeah, I’m gonna run the place, they didn’t tell you?”

“That make you my boss?” Sam lowers his voice and flutters his eyebrows in Leila’s direction until she lets out a little snort of laughter that Sam takes as a small, private victory.

“We can negotiate that role play after 10 am, hot shot,” Leila says. She nods her head towards his phone. “So, is it about the goats? Give me the hot goss from your two husbands.”

Sam lets out a low groan. “You know, you keep making that joke where other people can hear and there’s gonna be rumors about our transatlantic polyamorous drama.”

Leila smirks up at him and he’s not sure how she does it, how she can go from fast asleep to looking like she could take on the world. “I mean, you always did like white boys. I can’t say I ever understood it but I support you anyways.”

Sam just casts a skeptical side eye in Leila’s direction. “Hey, now. Don’t think Kamala hasn’t told me about that hippie white girl you used to date who was ‘ethically non-monogamous’,” he says, making the finger quotes in the air.

“Everyone goes through dark periods,” Leila deadpans, and Sam cracks up, feels his shoulders shaking from the laughter, as Leila presses the curve of her own grin into the side of his chest.

“Alright, let’s see what the truth is,” Sam says, swiping open his phone.

It’s not about the goats. It’s not about the projects that Nakia asked for super soldier help with, either, traveling all over the African continent bringing Wakandan aid to corners of the globe that were hit the hardest.

Sam has definitely entertained himself imagining Nakia directing them around to lift heavy things that she could probably also lift, if she wanted, if she wasn’t too busy being both Queen and spymaster.

But Sam guesses from the texts that he’s scanning through, probably they’re not going to be doing that for much longer.

 

> **From Steve Rogers:**  Hey slow poke. Are there still hipsters in Brooklyn?
> 
> **From Steve Rogers:** thats steves dumb way of telling u we’re coming bck to bk this is bucky i stole his phone his pw is my bday can u believe this loser
> 
> **From Steve Rogers:** Sorry, Sam, I wish I could blame his terrible grammar on being friends with Shuri but her text grammar is impeccable, he’s just a dumbass. The nuns would be ashamed.
> 
> **From Steve Rogers:** im jewish and the nuns wouldnt give a fuck anyways shut up rogers
> 
> **From Steve Rogers:** Uh, anyways. Hi Sam. Yeah, we’re heading back in a few weeks. I’ll let you know when we know more.

Sam takes a quick snapshot of the conversation and sends it to Natasha with a string of vomit emojis before wordlessly passing the phone to Leila. Mostly because he needs someone else to bear witness to how fucking stupid his friends are.

The history textbooks did not prepare him for this Laurel and Hardy old married routine.

At the same time, something warm and fond shakes loose in Sam’s chest and sure, he’s always known that he’s kind of a sappy guy, and he’s not ashamed of it, not sorry for it at all. Because for all of the dumb shit he’s done, all of the hard choices he’s made, they’ve all landed him with the best fucking people by his side.

Sometimes, it’s 9 AM and you’re half-awake in your maybe-girlfriend’s bed and overwhelmed, a little, at the luck you’ve had so far. For now, he’s just gonna blame it on the sleep deprivation.

“So, they’re coming back?” Leila sets Sam’s phone aside and peers up at him, an unspoken question written into the small furrow of her brow.

“They’re coming back,” Sam says, with a small, decisive nod, like he’s just made up his mind about something, just answered a question that Leila didn’t even have to ask in the first place.

Because he knows what she’s thinking. And it’s a little weird, actually, because he sort of expected a little more apprehension, expected the cold weight of unwanted nerves to settle into his gut.

It’s just that — for a long time, he was the guy who worked with Captain America, but lately, he’s been the Falcon, all on his own, and he doesn’t know how that changes, doesn’t know how Steve coming back into the picture tips the scale. Sam doesn’t...it’s not that he craves authority, that’s the last thing he ever fucking wants, but he’s gotten used to people trusting his word, right away, without looking to someone else first.

It’s not Steve’s fault and it’s no reflection on how Steve feels and Sam gets that, he does, or else he would’ve walked away from this gig a long time ago, but it’s just….how it is, a lot of the time. Captain America is a wholesome looking white boy and sure, Steve Rogers is a hell of a lot more complicated than that, but still, it’s easy for most to let their gazes slide right over to who they think should be calling all of the shots.

And it’s not Sam. It’s never someone who looks like Sam.

He doesn’t see that kind of thing changing any time soon but right this second, Sam finds that he’s just not that worried about it. And that’s a surprise and maybe it’s equal parts self-preservation and self-delusion, but all the same, he’s gonna roll with it.

Sam hums, softly, before pressing a kiss into Leila’s temple. “So, coffee?”

.

The second time it happens, Sam is at the front desk at the clinic, helping Kamala finish up on some paperwork since she stayed up way too late again helping him with supply runs to Ozone Park.

It wasn’t supposed to be a late night but then they ran out of gas and it took them three gas stations to find one that even still had enough gas to give them, and by that point, it was well past midnight.

And now here they are, a scant nine hours later, and already back to work.

“You know, maybe if someone told me that this whole saving people gig meant missing out on so much sleep, I never would’ve gotten into it,” Kamala whines, collapsing her forehead to a stack of papers, and nearly upending her coffee cup in the process.

Sam makes a small humph sound, turning the sheet he’s on over and starting in on the second page. “Yeah, you would’ve.”

“Yeah, I would’ve,” Kamala sighs, lifting her head up, and carefully peeling away the post-it note that’s stuck to her forehead. “Ugh. I gotta get that Starbucks app.”

Sam breaks off a piece of donut from the open box that they’ve got split between them, and pops it into his mouth. He spotted a single gray hair on his head in the mirror this morning, just above his left ear, and thought to himself, well fuck, this is how it happened to Obama, huh? He texted Steve about it and got about five different shitty old man jokes for his troubles which really, that’s on him, Sam should’ve seen that one coming a mile away.

So for all her half-hearted complaining, Kamala looks a hell of a lot more awake than he does -- the joys of being twenty, he guesses. Sam pauses in mid-thought, struck by curiosity. “Hey, how did you get into all of this, anyways?”

“Probably the way most people my age did. Remember -- well, you wouldn’t remember, huh? But I’m sure Leila’s told you about how bad it got, with the right wing pushing anti-abortion laws left and right after the Decimation.” Kamala re-caps the top on her pen and then taps it against the countertop, once, twice, and shifts in her seat. Sam’s noticed this, sometimes, the way people talk about the lost years, how they get nervous, almost like they don’t want anyone who got snapped to know how ugly it got.

But then she shakes herself, a little, and keeps talking. “Because why should anyone with a uterus get to have control over their bodies when we have to repopulate the planet, am I right?”

“That’s some scary-ass Margaret Atwood shit,” Sam says, grimacing.

“We were three-quarters past a Handmaid’s Tale for a while there, yeah,” Kamala agrees, matching his grimace. “But that’s how I became a clinic escort and how I met Leila, ‘cause she trained me, and now a year and a half later, here I am. I’m basically an Avenger.”

“Basically an Avenger,” Sam repeats, “uhuh, sure.”

Kamala smacks him in the arm with a folder. “You know what would super actually make me an Avenger?”

Sam heaves a gusty, put-upon sigh. “For the last time, no, I have no idea how to get into touch with Captain Marvel.”

“I don’t believe you,” Kamala says, voice prim, as she un-caps her pen and gets back to work. “One of these days, I’m gonna get it out of you.”

“Scuse me,” a small voice pipes up, out of nowhere. “Scuse me, Mister Cap.”

Sam cranes his neck over the side of the countertop to find a small boy standing there, with a nervous grin that’s missing most of its baby teeth, and brightly colored stickers clustered all over the brown skin of his arms that definitely came from one of the sticker books in the reception area. He’s shifting from side-to-side but staring straight up at Sam and totally unsurprisingly, at the box of donuts.

“Hey, little man, what’s up?” Sam says, folding his arms over the edge of the countertop and resting his chin on top so he can look at the kid in the eye.

“My mama said it was okay for me to ask for a donut, if you don’t mind, so could I please have a donut, please?” The kid is heartbreakingly adorable in a Star Wars Rebel Alliance t-shirt and matching Chewbacca-print hi-tops, so Sam’s pretty sure he would’ve said yes even if the kid hadn’t gone and said please twice.

Sam reaches back into the box, pointedly ignoring the way Kamala has one hand clutched over her heart, and pulls out the smallest donut for the kid, and then hands it down to him.

“Thanks, Cap!” The kid says brightly, before taking off.

“I’m not...I'm not Cap though,” Sam calls out after him, but the kid is all the way across the room now, and definitely out of hearing range. “It’s the Falcon, remember?”

Sam sits back into his chair with a thump, frowning softly. “So, that was weird, right?”

Kamala just shrugs, unconcerned. “He’s like, six years old. Probably the only thing he knows about Captain America is that he’s from New York and he helps people.”

Her lips twitch upwards into a small, knowing smile that reminds Sam entirely too much of Natasha. “You telling me that doesn’t sound like you?”

.

 

When Steve finally turns up on the doorstep to the Wilson family apartment with Bucky in tow, he looks more like a person and less like the skeleton carrying around the face of his best friend that left New York six months ago. There are still shadows in his gaze but they’re further away, now, and mostly they’ve been replaced by new laugh lines in the creases around his eyes. Steve is casually dressed, in a henley and jeans, but he’s not doing the weird old man clothes thing that he does when he’s horribly, tragically sad, and he’s got an honest-to-goodness tan from so much time out in the Wakandan sun.

“Hey, mountain man, haven’t seen this look in a minute,” Sam says, pulling Steve into a huge bear hug.

And that’s another thing: he’s grown the beard back.

Steve scratches at the side of his jaw and shrugs, but Sam doesn’t miss the way the tips of his ears turn bright pink. “Well, you know. It’s back by popular demand.”

Sam catches hold of Bucky’s gaze over Steve’s shoulders and lets out a low whistle. “Alright, Barnes. You’re a man who knows what he wants, huh?”

“Keep going, I think we can probably get him to blush a little harder,” Bucky says, stepping forward to draw Sam into a tight, quick hug, and it’s so much more than he ever would’ve allowed back in the early days, when he was still struggling to know his own name.

The uninterrrupted time together has done him good too: the Bucky of today is clean-shaven, with shorter hair and fuller cheeks. He looks more like he must’ve used to, back before the war; he looks more like the way Steve would always draw him, back when they were hauling ass looking for the Winter Soldier and what was left of HYDRA. Christ, but that feels like two whole lifetimes ago, now.

“So, are your parents home?” Steve asks, in an entirely un-subtle attempt to change the subject that causes Bucky to let out a low snort.

“Nah, they’re having a ‘getting to know each other again’ date in Central Park today,” Sam says, ushering Steve and Bucky all the way into the apartment, and easing the front door shut. “I kind of want to act like it’s gross ‘cause it’s my parents but I won’t lie, that shit is adorable. Picnic basket, jugs of lemonade, the whole nine yards.”

Steve casts a small enough look in Bucky’s direction that it almost goes unnoticed, the edges of his lips curling into a slow, fond smile. “Yeah, we know a thing or two about that.”

“Okay,” Sam says, clapping his hands together. “I love you guys and all, but you’ve been here for all of two minutes and you’re already giving me a cavity. What’s with the giant package you’ve got slung on your back, you’re not planning on staying here, are you? Because I don’t think we have the room.”

This time, the look that Steve sends Bucky’s way is deliberate, weighted with something that Sam can’t parse out. Steve shrugs the package on his back around and brings it to the floor in front of him, both hands holding it in place.

It’s large and round and if Sam didn’t know any better, he’d think it was Steve’s shield.

It could be Steve’s shield, he guesses; he was just in Wakanda, after all, and there’s nothing made by a Stark that Shuri couldn’t make better and stronger and in half the time.

An odd sensation falls over Sam, like a whisper piping up in the back of his mind, telling him that something big is about to happen, that there’s some truth that’s about to unfold and he can almost guess at it, but he’s not sure all the way, and he doesn’t want to risk the embarrassment of being wrong.

The front door opens and closes with a small, soft snick, before Sam can even register Bucky’s retreating footsteps.

“Huh,” Sam says, before Steve can so much as open his mouth. “You sure about this, man?”

Steve heaves the shield up to undo the casing on its slick black leather cover, letting the cover fall to the floor. It looks almost exactly the same; the red is a little deeper, the blue a little brighter. “I spent five years completely at a loss as to what Captain America was supposed to do so instead, I asked myself what you would do, and I went out and did that. It was the only thing that got me out of bed, most days. This? This was one of the easiest decisions of my life.”

Sam takes hold of the shield by the edges as Steve passes it over; it’s lighter than the original and that’s the hallmark of Shuri’s handiwork, but it’ll be no less tough in the field. Sam flips it so the straps are facing him and hooks his right arm through the soft leather.

“How’s it feel?” The look on Steve’s face is inscrutable, which is so entirely unlike him that Sam’s not sure how to respond.

Sam huffs. “Like it belongs to someone else.”

Steve shrugs a shoulder. “It doesn’t. Look…I’m not going to stand here and tell you it’s an easy job or an easy decision. It’s not and it shouldn’t be. Between you and me, I think you should sleep on it. And if the answer is no, the answer’s no. It’s up to you, Sam. But it’s all yours, if you want it.”

Sam glances up. “What are you gonna do?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Steve says, shoving both hands into his pockets, and it’s almost a mirror image of the man who stood across from Sam at the VA all those years ago, only this man, Sam’s pretty sure that this man knows exactly what makes him happy these days. “Buy a house, fix it up. Go back to art school. Do some volunteer work. Come home to my fiancé every night.”

Sam raises both eyebrows. “Oh, you were just gonna slip that in there all cool like that, huh?”

Steve folds over halfway, shoulders shaking with laughter. “I don’t know, I figured I’d see how it went.”

“You sly motherfucker,” Sam says, rolling his eyes. The shield is still on his arm; it’s starting to feel like it really does belong there and he’s not so sure that he wants to part with it just yet. “I cannot believe you.”

Steve nods at the shield. “Seriously, give it a night. We’re staying at a hotel a couple of blocks from here while we look for a place. Either way, we’re good.”

“Hey, Steve,” Sam says, just as Steve’s about to open the front door. “Thanks.”

Now Steve’s the one rolling his eyes. “You’re the one I’m trying to thank over here, Sam. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says, and then he shuts the door firmly behind him, leaving Sam alone in his parent’s kitchen with a shield, an offer, and a hell of a lot to think about.

.

His dad says he should do it, instantly. His mom, she cries a little, just like she did when he said he was shipping out to Afghanistan, but she says yes, too.

Leila crosses her arms over her chest and gives the shield a long, thoughtful look, which really, is why he came to her. He needs to look at all of the reasons to say no, dead on, and if there’s one thing he knows about her, it’s that she’s never afraid to give him the whole, ugly truth.

“You know I’m not a patriotic person.” Leila kicks a booted foot at the shield, testing it. It lets out a sharp clanging sound but doesn’t move.

Sam barks out a laugh. He remembers vividly exactly how she feels about the flag, the government, the military, all of it. It’s a conviction that’s only gotten stronger with time, with age and experience.

He doesn’t even think she’s wrong. She’s right about almost all of it. He remembers the time he spent in an underwater prison cell pretty vividly too. “Yeah, that’s kinda why I came to you.”

Leila raises her chin, looks him in the eye. “What, to talk you out of it?”

Sam takes a step forward, rests one hand lightly on her waist. “I trust your opinion. And I trust that you’ll give it to me straight.”

Leila lets out a soft humming sound. “You’re gonna make a lotta white people pretty angry.”

“Oh, believe me, I know that,” Sam says. “That’s not a reason not to do it, though.”

“Kamala told me a little kid called you Cap at the clinic once.” Leila hooks a finger in one of his belt loops and tugs him a little closer. “I think…I think that you could take everything that people believe about this shield and flip it on its head. If you wanted to.”

“Yeah?” Sam says, hope rising in his chest because this means something, having her in on it with him. He wants to have her in on it with him. Wants to let this warm, easy thing keep unfolding, wants to follow this road a little while longer, see how far it can go.

“Yeah.” Leila nods, as if it’s been decided already. “Sam Wilson, Captain America. I don’t hate it.”

He was always going to say yes, Sam realizes. He just needed to kick it around a little, to hear the words out of someone else’s mouth, to help make it real. Considering the slight, knowing twist to Leila’s mouth, he’s guessing that she realized it too.

Sam lets out a sigh but it comes out as a shaky, breathless laugh. “Well, alright then. It’s decided.”

.

“You know, unlike some people, I actually earned my title,” Sam says, without preamble, as soon as Steve picks up the phone.

“Yeah, but Staff Sergeant America doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.” Steve pauses, lets the silence settle between them. “Is that a yes or no?”

This time, Sam doesn’t hesitate. “It’s a yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three-quarters of the way to a Handmaid’s Tale is a play on a joke that Akilah Hughes made recently about our current political climate. I am not as funny as Akilah Hughes and will not pretend otherwise. 
> 
> all gen kill references are entirely intentional. police that mustache, y’all.


End file.
